Regional Action Plan on Air Pollution, adopted by the Forum of Ministers of Environment of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Regional Action Plan on Air Pollution, adopted by the Forum of Ministers of Environment of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, Mexico, March 14th 2014. The XIX Forum of Ministers of Environment for Latin America and the Caribbean adopted the Regional Action Plan on Air Pollution. This Regional Action Plan was drafted by the Clean Air Institute and Mexico's National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change (INECC), under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Program.

The overall objectives of this Regional Action Plan are to postulate common directions at short, medium and long-term, for members of the Intergovernmental Network on Air Pollution for Latin America and the Caribbean to abate air pollution in the region and mitigate emissions of priority pollutants, as well as to substantially decrease local, regional and global impacts of air pollution.

Specific goals for the next 4 years are:

Goal 1: 100 % of countries in the region have adopted national standards for air quality in direction to the WHO guidelines, and / or harmonization processes.

Goal 2: 100% of countries have in place programmes requiring priority cities to: a) evaluate and communicate air quality, including audits, and b) prepare emission inventories and

Goal 3: 75% of countries which still do not have in place monitoring systems, have at least one city where air quality evaluations are performed.

Goal 3: 50% of countries in the region have national action plans for air quality and emissions inventory priority pollutants